2005 French Open News
By Alix Ramsay| May 27, 2005
 It
seems 15-year-old Sesil Karatancheva
was born to be famous. After winning
the junior French Open last year she
said as much, but it took Friday’s
6-3, 1-6, 6-1 win over Venus Williams
in the third round of the women’s
event to really confirm it.
Karatancheva fell on the court when she won, then pumped her fist into the air,
blew kisses and, just for good measure, took a couple of bows. This is not a
girl who is ever going to hide her light under a bushel, or anything else for
that matter.
She deserves full credit both for overcoming a small bout of nerves when she
came to close out the first set and for bouncing back after Williams stormed
back in the second but the American was the victim of her own failings as much
as the Nick Bollettieri-trained Bulgarian’s ability to rise to the biggest
occasion of her career.
Williams defeat, incidentally, means that, of the 22 American players who entered
the men’s and women’s singles events, only Lindsay Davenport and
Marissa Irvin remain.
Williams has not made it past the quarter-finals of a grand slam in nearly two
years, since she lost to her sister Serena in the 2003 Wimbledon final. Last
year’s run to the quarter-finals of Roland Garros is her best result in
a major during that time and there it seems reports of her demise as a major
force in the game are not exaggerated. The days when she was the best player
in the world, when she won back to back Wimbledon and US Open titles in 2000
and 2001 are a long way in the past and she appears incapable of recapturing
them.
“I feel like I’m a great player but this is not the best result for
me right now,” said Williams. “I definitely think Serena and I can
get back to the top.”
Having won a warm-up event in Istanbul last week she should have been amply prepared
but she was almost comically bad in the third, though, speaking less than half
an hour after the defeat, she could not bring herself to admit it.
“She changed her game completely in the third set and started to hit slow
balls,” she said. “I wanted to play the aggressive game and each
ball was close to the line but according to the umpire they were out. I think
if I played ten percent better I would have won this match easy. I kind of beat
myself.”
Most balls were nowhere near the line, in fact they were lucky to have stayed
within the confines of the stadium and Karatancheva must have been delighted
to see the balls fly and the points notch up on the scoreboard.
Fame, or so they say, usually happens to those who are thinking about something
else. Much the same might be said of the World No.1 ranking and, in particular,
Lindsay Davenport’s rather ambivalent attitude towards it.
Davenport currently holds the top spot and ensured she hung on to it a little
longer by beating Virginie Razzano 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, though you wouldn’t know
it to listen to her afterwards.
“I’m pretty amazed I’m still in given how I feel I’ve
been playing,” she said. “All of my matches have gone three sets
and I’ve struggled in all of them. I’m beginning to think it might
be one of my greatest achievements in a while just to be able to still be here
and still playing. Nothing’s coming easily.”
Davenport is being chased hard for No.1 by Maria Sharapova, who plays Anna Chakvetadze
for a place in the fourth round on Saturday. Sharapova has to make it to the
quarters at the very least to catch Davenport and hope the American loses before
that. It’s safe to say then, given the math involved, that Sharapova will
be quietly cheering on Kim Clijsters when the Belgian takes on Davenport on Sunday.
 Clijsters was far more convincing than Davenport in beating Daniela Hantuchova
6-4, 6-2 to notch up her third successive straight sets win and offer more evidence
that she is sufficiently recovered from the knee injury she sustained in Berlin
to mount a realistic challenge for the title here.
Even if Davenport was playing well and on a surface more sympathetic to her game
than clay she would consider the match against Clijsters an extraordinary tough
fourth round match-up. The pair have played fourteen times – though never
on clay – and Clijsters has won nine of their matches, the most recent
victory coming en route in the Pacific Life Open final in March.
Little wonder Davenport sounded like a condemned woman, though she wouldn’t
be the first player to downplay her chances to transfer the pressure to her opponent’s
shoulders.
“I have a tough time playing her on my favourite surface, let alone my
least favourite,” said the American. “She gives me all sorts of trouble
with how she plays. If you look at our past match-ups I’d say she would
be the favorite regardless of the rankings. It’s not the record you want
going into a match with someone.”
Clijsters rates her knee at “85. 90%” and was not buying into Davenport’s
contention that she can be World No.1 and yet an underdog at the same time. “It’s
going to be a tough match. She serves really well, that’s going to be her
strongest point on clay. I think that’s going to be a little bit of a disadvantage
for me.”
We can only hope that when Davenport plays Clijsters on Sunday the match turns
out to b as good as it looks on paper. Rafael Nadal’s much-anticipated
clash against Richard Gasquet didn’t quite live up to expectations but
that was largely because Nadal was simply too good for his fellow 18-year-old.
The Spaniard was clinical in beating Gasquet 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 and silencing a Philippe
Chatrier Court that had tingled with excitement during the knock up.
The tingling dissipated somewhat when Gasquet dropped his serve in the opening
game of the match and disappeared altogether when it became clear that for all
Gasquet’s talent, he doesn’t boast the same level of match-craft
and maturity as Nadal. Five clay court titles this year already suggests that
we are witnessing a prodigy but he must still win four more matches before he
can truly be crowned this year’s king of the clay. The next test will be
to get past another Frenchman, Sebastien Grosjean, who needed five sets to get
past Radek Stepanek.
Like Karatancheva, Gasquet is a star of the future. Venus must wish she could
say the same.
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